Nelson & His World

A flag that flew at Trafalgar is for sale. 'said to have' and 'believed to be' in the sales blurb but it does seem to be genuine. Over to you, Mark!



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... 50000.html

D'oh - you've beaten me to it. I was just going to post about this.

Anyone got £50k lying about?

Cheers, MTS

I've a feeling that, if it's the real thing, it will go for more than £50,000. I reckon £150,000+.

Ha! Just got this Google alert!

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/un ... ip-6973166

Anna

As you know I want every one of these stories to be true. I really do. I am just cautious in the extreme.

It must be possible for an expert to say if those holes are penetration holes rather than moth holes or what have you. If they are and the material and method of manufacture are correct for the period then I'm starting to get interested.

Then I want real genuine provenance hopefully as early as possible and if possible from 2 independent sources. That seems to be lacking here. What worries me is that it only takes one person in a hundred years to say the flag MIGHT HAVE BEEN at Trafalgar and that is then likely to reported ever after as it WAS at Trafalgar.

One thing that I will try to do is to look at the catalogue of the Naval Exhibition at Chelsea in 1891. All sorts of artefacts were brought out of cupboards and what have you and loaned to that exhibition. If it wasn't there no problem but if it was that will add hugely to the likelihood that it is the real deal.

On balance I would say more than a 50% chance it is genuine. But if I was shelling out £50K plus or whatever I would definitely want to see more evidence than I have seen so far.

It will be a great saga to follow through to the actual sale.

I read the original newspaper article and thought 'oh that's interesting' but that's all. Now Mark has turned this into the 'Turin Shroud' of Trafalgar Flags and my interest has grown.
However I think I want 'proof' before I put in my £50k bid.

Cheers, MTS

Having read the Telegraph article, I guess one of the key points is William IV passing the flag on to an officer on the Royal Yacht George. It's not entirely clear from their piece if this was the Lt Cory mentioned in the next paragraph, or whether another officer was involved in the chain. I would imagine the Royal Archives would have some sort of record of the flag from that period and be consulted on that point to strengthen the provenance.

Like others I hope this rare item is indeed the genuine article.

Phil

I'm just going to throw this in as "food for thought".

Please don't think I am being deliberately negative or looking for problems. I just want to ask all the questions that I think are relevant and if the answers come out correct then we have probably got a genuine item.

Anyway I'll attach an image of the flag from Spartiate that was sold back in 2009(?). You can see that the red diagonal bars are central to the white bars unlike today where they are offset. Was there some comment about that at the time?

Whereas on the Leviathan they are offset as today.

Does that question whether the flags are from the same date?

I don't mind being called a buffoon over any of these questions I raise. I'm deliberately playing devil's advocate. But would genuinely value any opinions one way or the other.

P.S. I really should research things properly before I make my posts. It looks as if the Leviathan flag is quite correct for the period. That makes the Spartiate flag incorrect and probably why there was comment about it at the time. But I can't for the life of me remember what conclusion people came to. So I am edging nearer to giving the Leviathan flag my seal of approval LOL!

Well I checked the catalogue of the 1891 Chelsea Naval Exhibition and it didn't surface there.

Also the newspaper database that I have access to and Google books. No sign there.

So I think I'll butt out now and see what the real experts make of it, how the catalogue entry reads, and ultimately what somebody decides to pay for it.

Going a bit off topic here but I was wondering was it ever revealed who bought the Spartiate flag and what became of it?

Mark

A follow up article on the auction of the Spartiate flag in the Nelson Dispatch (vol 11 pt 4 Oct 2009 p225) says that it was bought by an anonymous American buyer. It goes on to say that the government would give time for museums to match the bid to prevent it being granted an export licence but it appears that was unsuccessful, as a further article in the October 2011 issue concerning the Minotaur flag, quotes a letter to the Daily Telegraph saying that Spartiate's was eventually lost to an overseas private buyer.

Phil

Thanks Phil. I don't always get the chance to read all the content of the Nelson Dispatch and I do miss things.

I was told a few years back of a oil executive in the US (or Canada) who has a room next to his office with an adjoining door. Only 2 people are ever allowed to enter that room which is himself and his secretary. And it contains his personal Nelson museum. It was only hearsay and I'm not saying there is any connection with the Spartiate flag, but it shows that there ARE people out there who are in a position to indulge themselves in such a way.

Personally I would rather give the Elgin Marbles back to Greece and Cleopatra's Needle back to Egypt. And we'll have our Spartiate flag back please!!

Another Trafalgar flag - or part of one - and well authenticated - is up for sale. Estimate: £70.000. I reckon it will go for double that, at least.


http://www.express.co.uk/news/history/6 ... sale-70000

Mark: a multi-millionaire with a secret Nelson room! Sounds like a Bond villain to me!

Just had a look at Christies online catalogue. The flag remnant is Lot 14 in their auction of 'Fine Antique Arms Armour & Sporting Guns' on Dec 17, and as well as some other naval lots, also features military items from the Napoleonic era including some relating to Wellington.

Interesting that the guide price of £50-£70K for a 5"x4" inch piece from HMS Victory is around the price quoted for the full size Leviathan flag. A stronger provenance & Nelson connection I guess.

Will look forward to following the sale on Thursday, purely as an observer I hasten to add.

Phil

I have been asked to submit the following, which relates to the Leviathan flag that will be sold next March. A descendant of the Bayntun family wishes to draw attention to the following:

It seems my plea for caution, caution, caution may have been well-founded then. I had no idea till now that the Bayntun descendants have a flag that might be the genuine one from Leviathan at Trafalgar. I don't think I have got enough hours in the day to pursue this any further so I am just going to sit back and watch from the sidelines. But I will be particularly interested in the wording of the auction catalogue.

Anna Reference the private Nelson museum it was told me by a pretty trustworthy source, but nevertheless is still hearsay. Definitely intriguing though and the reason why I never forgot it! LOL!

Finally the fragment of the Victory flag. This strikes a chord with me as around the time of the Trafalgar bi-centary I read that the Sea Cadets were planning to trace as many of these fragments of the Victory Union Jack in museums and private collections and see if they could "fit" any of the pieces together as a sort of "virtual jigsaw puzzle." I had made notes re. a few fragments that I had come across over the years and passed this on to one of the officers involved. But I then never heard another thing about it. I can only assume the project was abandoned. It may have been one of those things that "seemed a good idea at the time" but then reality kicked in and it fizzled out to nothing.

It is interesting that this fragment "conveniently" has all 3 colours attractively presented alongside each other whereas by far the majority of the flag was areas of one single colour. I don't know if those notes I made years ago mentioned any that were one single colour or just 2 colours. All interesting considerations that I would like to look into further if there were only more hours in the day!